28-year-old star reveals Arsenal transfer contact via Wenger

Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has revealed some details about the relationship he had with Arsene Wenger leading up to his transfer to the club.

The Germany international moved to the Emirates stadium from Real Madrid in the summer of 2013.

And with the Gunners boss now under pressure to surrender his job, Ozil has revealed Wenger played a major part in his London switch.

“I called a number that I’d saved in my phone back in 2010. ‘Mr Wenger,’ I said, ‘I promised that you’d be the first person I’d contact if I were ever looking for another club. Now I am’,” he wrote in his book Gunning for Greatness

“Arsene Wenger told me that he had been keeping an eye on me the whole time and that he liked how I’d developed.

“And all of a sudden I had that positive feeling again, the one I’d had during our telephone conversation back in 2010.

“I sensed that this man, who I’d never met personally, had a very high opinion of me and trusted me. Exactly what I needed at this difficult time. Jose Mourinho was astonished. ‘You didn’t say anything to me. I thought you wanted to finish your career at Real Madrid,’ he texted me.”